MONSOON WEDDING
(2001, color, 113 minutes)
Golden Lion. Venice International Film Festival
DATE: Sunday. November 4. TIME: 4:30 p.m.

SYNOPSIS: This exuberant ensemble comedy, which recently won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival brings to us a spirited Punjabi family that comes together in Delhi for the wedding of one of its members. The monsoon rains loom over New Delhi, as the Venna family prepares for their daughter's arranged marriage. The father of the bride, Lalit Verma (Naseeruddin Shah), and his wife Pimmi (Lillette Dubey) have endured the ups and downs of a traditional marriage. Their daughter Aditi, (Vasundhara Das) is marrying Houston engineer Hemant Rai (Parvin Dahas), though she's not yet over her love affair with her older (and married) ex-boss. Unmarried cousin Ria Verma (Shefali Shetty) begins to assert herself within the family, revealing a disturbing secret she has suppressed for years. P.K Dube (Vijay Raaz), the excitable and upwardly mobile, tent-and-catering contractor for the wedding, is blindsided by true love- in the form of the Venna family's virtuous young maid Alice (Tilotama Shome).

DIRECTOR: Accomplished film director Mira Nair was born in India and educated at Delhi University and at Harvard. Slie began her career as an actor and then turned to directing Award- winning documentaries, including "So far from India" and "India Cabaret". Her first feature film "Salaam Bombay" was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film in 1988, and won 25 international awards including (lie Camera D'or at Cannes. Her other film credits include "Mississippi Masala", "The Perez Family", "My own Country" and "Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love".

CAST: Naseerudin Shah is one of lndia's greatest actors. A graduate of the National School of Drama, Shah has received four FilmFare Awards India's equivalent of the Oscar) for Best Actor; two Indian National awards for Best Actor; Best Actor at the 1985 Venice Film Festival and the Padma Shri (the highest arts honour awarded by the Indian government) in 1987. Lillette Dubey is a respected stage actress whose theater company has thrice received the Sahitya Kala Parishad Award for Best Play of the Year. Well-known to Indian film audiences, Dubey recently appeared in Shvam Benegal's "Zubeidaa" Roshan Seth is known to audiences worldwide for his work in over 30 films Among these are "Gandhi", "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." "A Passage to India", "My Beautiful Launderette" and most recently, "Vertical Limit."